First of all homies, two huge apologies: a preemptive one for this email, its longish.
Secondly, for my radio silence. It has been quite
some time since my last mass e-communique, (late January, according to
my calculations). I’ve been slack on emails, returning phone
calls, and overall friendship. I’ve always sortof resented those
people–you know, the ones who only call you on their time, who don’t
return emails, who wait a month to reply to yours, etc. But, as I’ve
discovered, I am one of those people–”You are what you hate,” a maxim,
we all individually wish didn’t apply to us, but ultimately, i think we can just be shitty, as I
have. Or maybe I’m being too hard on myself. I have been,
“busy.”–whatever that means, aren’t we all “busy”, does that excuse
even work anymore? Its like being a fish and saying to another fish,
“sorry Flounder, can’t go breakdancing tonight, I’m too wet.” Know
what I mean?

Anyway, so after reading my last, “hey friends, here’s what I’ve been
up to” email, in January, I had just filmed an episode for Hello
Vienna, Hello Austria, an Austrian lifestyle TV show. They filled me
full of hope, promise, and positive praise and then after a few weeks
of unreturned phone calls, and cancelled appointments, nothing. Its
something I’m learning over here in Austria, being “new guy” sucks. Who am I kidding, “new
guy” gets shit on everywhere. Oh well, at least when I’m running short on
stories to tell future grandchildren I can say, “did grandpa ever tell you
about the time he was on Austrian TV?”
“Yes, grandpa.”
So yup, I was basically used for one episode, then something about not
having the right “work permit, can’t insure me on location, etc…”

Fine. Just don’t get my hopes up, you fuckers. Mostly, because I’m one
of those stupids who believes people, and sort of needs hope to get
by, and because I’m also one of those stupids who opens his big mouth
in excitement, to tell everyone about something cool thats happening
to me, before its a sure thing, then when it doesn’t work out, feeling
like a jackass, and wishing I hadn’t opened my big mouth.*

*If anyone knows how to cure this condition, other than the obvious,
“keep your mouth shut until things pan out, jackass.”–please pass it
on.

Maybe thats also why, I’m realizing now as I write this, I have waited
so long to write–things take a while to pan out, and not surprisingly, things have sortof panned out for me, in sortof wierd ways.

Not long after my TV career ended, I began bartending at a friend’s
pub (two drunk dudes I met at a kebab stand. Upon accepting the position, they remarked, “Actually, we haven’t quite finished bulding it yet, Shaan, so you can help us build you your job?.”
“Sure.”
So we did, and opened the pub. And that was fun. Then Clem and I kept coming up with ideas for the cellar downstairs. And the owners said, “those are all really good ideas guys, here’s a few thousand euro, have fun redesigning and redocorating our basement.”

And after working 28 out of 31 days, long days, in a basement, here’s what Clem
and I made, another of my accomplishments, too wierd to put on a
resume:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.5bmyztqx&x=0&y=-k7z4ii

Somewhere inbetween meeting these guys at a kebab stand, and helping
rebuild their basement. I managed to get an article published in a
fashion and art magazine here, in Vienna. I met the editor of the
magazine at a bar, and lied to him and told him I was a published
writer, he said “cool. send me your portfolio.” I woke up the next day,
realizing I had no portfolio, so decided to come clean, and wrote the
following to use as my writing sample, and sent it to them:

http://shaanspot.com/?p=23

upon reading it, they said, “we don’t appreciate beng lied to,
but your writing is good, we want you to write an article for us.” So I
did: this one, its about haircuts:

text only version:

http://shaanspot.com/?p=27

published version:

http://shaanspot.com/?page_id=53

The magazine is called “Vernis,” in English that means,”Varnish”. They’ve asked me to stick with them, and edit other English submissions to the magazine, and write articles for them. However, being that this is Austria, and that I’m a veteran at being, “new guy”, and they can try to blow smoke up my ass, but there is already so much smoke up there, they will get blasted with a musty, smoky-filled-butt backdraft, and start doubting themselves. Thusly, all I can say to that is, “we’ll see.” Will most likely go back to teaching English, and making up exciting occupations to tell girls I meet at bars, forever.

Oh yeah, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I sortof started a blog
somewhere back there. I don’t really know what it is yet, or know, really, very much about websites, and have alot more ideas for it, so expect more on that in the future.

http://www.shaanspot.com/

I was dilligently adding content to the website until, rebuilding this bar took over my
life, and then by a stroke of brilliant coincidence, luck, and
stellar, award-winning, friendship, my buddy Dharma, living in Nice,
in the South of France, calls me up and says, “Dude, I’m moving back
to San Francisco for the summer, want to babysit my motorcycle in
Vienna for a few months?” I said, “hell yes,”and flew to Nice the day
after we opened the bar and then took 11days to drive a 500cc, blue
suzuki from Nice to Rome, to see my cousin, then turned around and
drove up and over the Swiss alps, making my way back to Vienna.
here’s some pictures:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.9eretl8x&x=0&y=-pp4nsb

Oh yeah, I also met up with Dharma and my cousin in Nice for Carnival
(Mardi Gras), back in March, here’s some pictures of that:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=5hfwaq5.40×4ouv9&x=0&y=-i911f9

okokok, that’s it. For those of you who made it to the end of this email, congratulations: you have an attention span to be proud of. I would have stopped reading thirty minutes ago. Thanks again, to everyone who came to visit for my birthday, I’m 29 now, wierd.
Things are good in Austria. Ill be back in California at the end of September. Looking forward to the summer here in Vienna. Not sure what the future brings, at the moment, which is equally cool and teriffying, but I’m happy. Hope everyone else is well. Can’t wait to get back and see my friends and family. I miss you all. Lots of Love from Vienna.

der Shaan